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Eco-Villager Laura Allen signs her new book, The Water Wise Home: How to Conserve, Capture, and Reuse Water in Your Home and Landscape. Details below!

New book! The Water-Wise Home by Laura Allen

Create Your Own Water-Wise Home and Landscape (book release event and presentation)

With simple plumbing alterations and smart landscape changes, every home has the potential to create a sustainable water supply with an ecologically productive landscape. From reusing greywater, to collecting rainwater, to installing waterless composting toilets, our collective efforts can transform our home water systems. Learn how you can transform your own home so it conserves and reuses our precious water resources, while growing a bountiful garden. This presentation will teach you how. It will also include national trends, codes and regulations, costs, health and safety considerations, and system examples.

Date: Friday, April 3rd

Time: 7:30pm book signing. You can bring or buy The Water-Wise Home: How to Conserve, Capture, and Reuse Water in Your Home and Landscape (Storey Press, 2015) $25 cash or check.

New bike lanes on First Street, immediately adjacent to Los Angeles Eco-Village

There are a lot of bicyclists in Koreatown, but, as Jeff Jacobberger has pointed out, there aren’t many bicycle lanes existing or planned for the entire dense area just west of Downtown Los Angeles – including Koreatown, Hollywood, and Miracle Mile.

Over the past week, the area did receive one short stretch of bike lane. It’s about a third of a mile on First Street from Commonwealth Avenue/Beverly Boulevard to Vermont Street. This is immediately north of Los Angeles Eco-Village, and along the southern edge of Virgil Middle School.

For what seems like about a half-dozen years, this area has been under construction for LADWP water lines, and then for school construction. Despite construction closing a couple of lanes, as far as I can recall, the street never experienced any serious car congestion. The construction is done, and the street was recently resurfaced.

Thiago and Peter shoveling gravel into wheelbarrows to transport it into the LAEV courtyard. All photos by Joe Linton

Here are some photos showing eco-villagers working on the new outdoor kitchen last weekend. Laura Allen has been the person who has really made this happen, and many of us lend a hand when we have time. Prior to these photos, Laura worked with other eco-villagers to build the deck, counter, sink, and washing machine. The sink and washing machine drain into greywater plumbing that waters the nearby garden.

At one point in the protracted Bike Plan processes, the city of Los Angeles labeled the Virgil Avenue bike lanes as “infeasible.” Thanks to persistence from local cyclists, including Eco-Villagers, and leadership from then-Councilmember now-Mayor Eric Garcetti (special thanks to Garcetti’s deputy Marcel Porras), the city is now striping new bike lanes on Virgil Avenue from Santa Monica Boulevard to Melrose Avenue – just northeast of L.A. Eco-Village.

The new Virgil Avenue bike lanes connect to these recent bike lanes on Santa Monica Boulevard in East Hollywood

The new bike lanes are a road diet – reducing four car lanes to three – adding bike lanes and making the street safer for driving, walking and bicycling. They are beginning to build the East Hollywood portion of the city’s bicycle network by connecting to recent bike lanes on Santa Monica Boulevard and are very close to bike lanes on Myra and Sunset. You can ride the new Virgil lanes nearly from the Bicycle District to the new home of the Bicycle Kitchen. Woooot! Woooooooot!

Join now-Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell in celebrating the new bike lanes at their grand opening this Saturday January 18th at 9am at Sqirl, 720 N. Virgil.

Here’s the official announcement from City Councilmember O’Farrel’s office:

Please join Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell as we celebrate the newest bike lane project in the City of Los Angeles! Continue reading →

This Friday, September 14, 2012 at 7:30 pm author/activist Cleo Woelfle-Erskine gives a public talk on his new book Creating Rain Gardens. The talk takes place at L.A. Eco-Village, 117 Bimini Place, LA 90004. There’s a requested admission of $5 to $10, but no one turned away for lack of funds. Reservations recommended, contact eco-village: crsp [at] igc.org or 213/738-1254.